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Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment Monthly Newsletter
2006 SORCE Science Meeting
Tentative Agenda –
August 2006
Ellsworth Dutton, Surface Radiation Budget
Observations: Progress and Challenges
► Tom Ackerman, The Radiation Budget of an
Atmospheric Column in the Tropical Western Pacific
► Roger Davies, Constraints on the Interannual Variation
of Global and Regional TOA Radiation Budgets Inferred
from MISR Measurements
► Steven Dewitte, Time-Space Complete Measurement of
the Earth Radiation Budget
► Tony Slingo, Observations of the Earth’s Radiation
Budget from Geostationary Orbit and from the Surface
► Xunmin Shen, The FY-3 Earth Radiation Measurement
Instrument Design and Calibration
►
September 20-22
San Juan Islands, Washington
Full meeting details including abstracts for this
year’s SORCE Meeting, Earth’s Radiative Energy
Budget Related to SORCE, are available at:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/2006ScienceMeeting/.
Between the great science program and the magnificent setting, you won’t want to miss the 4th Annual
SORCE Science Meeting!
4:30 p.m. Poster Sessions/Reception
► Antony Clarke, Biomass Burning and Pollution
Aerosol over North America: Organic Components and
Their Influence on Spectral Optical Properties and
Humidification Response
► Dominique Crommelynck, The Observation of the
Earth Radiation Budget: A Set of Challenges
► Matt Deland, Composite Solar UV Time Series for
Tentative Meeting Agenda
(as of 8/29/06)
Tuesday, Sept. 19
5:30 p.m. Welcoming
Reception
the 21st Century
► Chang-Yun
Fan, Effect of Solar Wind on Ecosystem
Froehlich, Comparison of the WRC-85 Solar
Spectral Irradiance with RSSV1 and the SPM of
VIRGO/SOHO
► Barry Knapp, SORCE Solar Irradiance Data Products
► Greg Kopp, Could You See an Earth-Type Planetary
Transit of a Solar-Type Star? Another Use of TIM Data
► Robert Kurucz, High Resolution Irradiance Spectrum
from 300 to 1000 nm
► Jeff Morrill, A Model of Long-Term Variability of Solar
UV and EUV Irradiance
► Julia Saba, Rapid Solar Cycle Onset – Potential New
Climate Study Tool?
► Marty Snow, The LASP Interactive Solar Irradiance
Database (LISIRD)
► Mark Weber, Solar UV/Vis/NIR Spectral Irradiance
from SCIAMACHY and GOME
► Guoyong Wen, Deriving Historical TSI Variations from
Lunar Borehole Profiles
Wednesday, Sept. 20
► Claus
8:30 a.m. Welcome
Session 1. SORCE Contributions to Earth’s
Radiative Energy Budget
► Tom
Woods, Overview of the SORCE Mission and
Its Future
► Greg Kopp, TSI: The Incoming Side of the Equation
► Jerry Harder, The Role of VIS-IR / SIM in Climate
Sicience
► Bill McClintock, The Role of UV / SOLSTICE in
Climate Science
► Marty Snow, The Role of Spectral Resolution in
Measuring the Solar Magnesium II Index
Session 2. Radiative Energy Budget
► Norm
Loeb, Determination of the Earth's Radiation
Budget from CERES
► Bruce Wielicki, Earth’s Radiation Budget from Space
► Peter Pilewskie, Overview of the Radiation Budget
in the Lower Atmosphere
► V. Ramanathan, How do Aerosols and Clouds
Regulate the Planetary Albedo and the Solar Radiation
Budget?
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Thursday, Sept. 21
SORCE Sponsors SSI & Climate
Modeling Workshop
Session 3. Radiative Forcings – Dedicated to
Yoram Kaufman
By Peter Pilewskie, LASP, University of Colorado
► Robert
Cahalan, Tribute to Yoram Kaufman
Lean, Solar Radiative Forcings
► Roger Pielke Sr., Regional and Global Climate
Forcings – The Need to Move Beyond a Focus of the
Radiative Forcing of the Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gases
► Mark Weber, Solar Variability and its Links to
Ozone-Climate Interaction
► Bill Collins, Radiative Forcing by Greenhouse Gases
and its Representation in Global Models
► Brian Cairns, Using Models and Measurements to
Understand and Constrain the Direct Effect of Aerosols
on Climate
► Jim Coakley, The Aerosol Indirect Effect
► Antony Clarke, An Ultrafine Sea-Salt Flux from
Breaking Waves: Implications for CCN in the Remote
Marine Atmosphere
► Steven Lloyd, A 27-Year Composite Dataset of
Global UV Effective Reflectivity from the TOMS and
SBUV(/2) Satellite Instruments
The LASP SORCE science team hosted a one-day
workshop in Boulder, Colorado on August 9 2006, entitled
Solar Spectral Irradiance (SSI) and Climate Modeling.
Approximately 40 people attended, primarily from the
University of Colorado, NCAR, and NOAA, but also represented were Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. (AER).
The solar Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM) on SORCE
is currently providing the very first continuous observations of the Sun’s ultraviolet, visible and near infrared
spectrum with sufficient precision to characterize true solar
variations. The measurements enable detailed quantification of the solar radiation that produces the variations in
total solar irradiance, monitored from space since 1978.
This characterization, not possible before the launch of
SORCE, is the basis for new understanding of the solar
spectral variability needed for input to a variety of climate
and atmospheric models and for reconstructing solar spectral irradiance variations prior to the SORCE mission.
A primary workshop goal was promotion of the SORCE
measurements of SSI and its variability for use by scientists in the climate, chemistry and radiative transfer communities. It is well known that the greatest relative variability in the solar spectrum occurs in the ultraviolet spectrum: however the largest energy changes occur at longer
wavelengths. Thus a high priority for the workshop was
variability of the full solar spectrum (0.2 to 2 micron), together with the climate processes and mechanisms of climate response to these variations. By fostering new interactions between the climate and atmospheric modeling
communities and the SORCE science team, we ultimately
aim to improve understanding of physical processes that
generate a multitude of reported empirical Sun-Climate
connections. From a practical standpoint, user communities gained a better understanding of the available SORCE
SSI data, their format, cadence, sampling and spectral
resolution, precision, and accuracy. Conversely, the
SORCE team gained a better understanding of current and
future user community needs and applications.
Tom Woods, SORCE Principal Investigator, opened the
workshop with a SORCE status report. The SORCE spacecraft was launched on January 25, 2003 and the mission is
► Judith
Session 4. Climate Responses and Feedbacks
► Graeme
Stephens, A Solar Radiation Perspective
on Cloud-Climate Feedback
► KK Tung, Climate Sensitivity from Atmosphere’s
Response to the Radiative Forcing of the 11-Year Solar
Cycle, including Feedbacks
► Steve Rumbold, Effect of the 11-Year Solar Cycle
on Stratospheric Temperatures
► David Halpern, Atmosphere-Ocean Interfaces
in Climate
3:45 p.m. Ferry to San Juan Island
6:30 p.m. SORCE Science Dinner,
San Juan Island Yacht Club
Guest Speaker – Gary Rottman
Friday, Sept. 22
Session 4 continues
► Robert Cahalan, Three-Dimensional Cloud
Properties and Climate
► Subarna Bhattacharyya, A Wavelet Cross-Spectral
Analysis of Solar/ENSO Connections with Indian
Monsoon Rainfall
► Ken Jezek, The Ice Feedback
► Jose Rial, Solar Forcing and Abrupt Climate
Change over the Last 100,000 Years
► EJ Zita, Earth’s Energy Balance: Climate
Change Workshops
240,075
Hits to the SORCE Website
(Since 4/21/03, As of 8/28/06)
11:00 a.m. Meeting Overview
12:00 noon Adjourn
1:30 p.m. Nature/Whale Watching Tour departs
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currently funded until January 2008. Following next
year’s Senior Review, SORCE could be extended an
additional 4 years. Tom emphasized the risk of potential
gaps in SSI (beyond SORCE) and TSI (beyond Glory),
even if the SORCE mission extends to 2012.
Jerry Harder, SORCE LASP Program Scientist and
SORCE Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM) Instrument
Scientist, and presented an overview of SORCE SSI
measurements. Jerry stressed the need for a highly accurate absolute solar spectrum and discussed the links
between solar variability and the Earth’s climate. He
presented examples of SORCE 27-day (solar rotation)
variability, from SOLSTICE and SIM, longer-term
variability (mean variance in spectral irradiance over a
60-day period), and simulations of differential instantaneous spectral heating rates between active and quiet
solar conditions.
Alexander Ruzmaiken from JPL, and a regular contributor to SORCE’s annual Science Team Meetings, illustrated the utility of Empirical Mode Decomposition
(EMD) for potentially linking modes of solar variability
with those of climatically significant variables such as
ozone concentration and temperature. Advantages of
EMD over other methods include better handling of
non-stationarity and nonlinearity and no “leakage” between modes.
Judith Lean, a member of the SORCE Science Team
from NRL in Washington, DC, provided an overview of
models of total and spectral solar variability, and gave
several examples of applications in climate and atmospheric chemistry. As an example, the solar spectra in
203 bands from 0.121 to 0.859 micron are needed daily
by AutoChem (Fig. 1, developed by David Lary). In
describing the broad user community of SSI, Judith set the
stage for subsequent talks and stimulated discussions of
user requirements and also discussed improvements in her
new spectral irradiance model and comparisons with SOLSTICE and SIM observations (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2 Models of solar spectral irradiance variations currently used as input for some climate and atmospheric
studies are being validated and improved using the
SORCE SIM observations.
Three talks addressed specific coupled climate models,
Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model
(WACCM), Hamburg Model of the Neutral and Ionized
Atmosphere (HAMMONIA), and the Goddard Institute for
Space Studies (GISS) Model, presented by Dan Marsh,
NCAR, Hauke Schmidt, Max Planck Institute, and Judith
Lean, NRL (for David Rind, GISS), respectively. Each
speaker provided model details, including spectral range
and resolution for the radiation modules and how solar irradiance is input into the models. For example, GISS has a
suite of atmospheric and ocean general circulation models
which require as input the solar spectral irradiance in 190
wavelength bands between 0.115 and 100 microns. Solar
spectra needed for input to WACCM include 11-year and
27-day spectrum variability in the ultraviolet, visible, and
infrared; extended (100 year) SSI variability; high temporal resolution for flare studies; and spectral irradiance for
historic periods such as the Maunder minimum.
Schmidt indicated that for HAMMONIA high resolution spectra are needed between 120 to 700 nm. At shorter
wavelengths the F10.7 proxy will be used. Currently Judith
Lean supplies model spectra with 1 nm spectral resolution
and 1-day temporal resolution for the solar irradiance,
which appears to be sufficient for most current applications. For long-term simulations of the recent past, data for
several solar cycles will be required. Presently such simulations rely on solar models. Of interest are data with high
AutoChem is an example of an application of solar
spectral irradiance daily data.
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temporal resolution (~10 min.) to characterize terrestrial
responses to solar eruptions of flares and solar proton
events.
Jennifer Delamere (AER, Inc.) described high spectral resolution, shortwave radiative transfer in the
Earth’s atmosphere. AER builds radiative transfer models suitable for Earth’s atmosphere and validates them
using high-resolution in situ radiance and irradiance
measurements. High resolution solar spectral irradiance
over the complete spectral range from UV through far
infrared is one of the key model inputs. AER seeks
guidance from the solar irradiance community to provide a high accuracy reference spectrum that will ultimately be transferred into global climate and numerical
weather prediction models.
Juan Fontenla, LASP, University of Colorado, described his Solar Radiation Physical Model (SRPM).
Juan has produced a very high resolution quiet-Sun spectrum to be used by AER in their models and a similar set
of spectra to be incorporated in MODTRAN at variable
native MODTRAN resolution bins. SRPM includes
seven different solar models and 10 quadrature angles to
synthesize the solar spectrum based on PSPT imagery.
SIM-measured irradiance is used to refine the model and
set the absolute irradiance scale.
Marty Snow, LASP’s PI of the LASP Interactive Solar IRradiance Datacenter (LISIRD), gave a brief review
of LISIRD and the various products it serves. Snow provided an online demonstration and solicited the attendees to provide him with recommendations for data formats and composite (time/wavelength) products.
In summary, this initial SSI-Climate workshop established a forum to communicate to the climate and atmospheric science communities the available SORCE
spectral irradiance data and to educate the SORCE science team on the variety of applications and future user
needs. It is well recognized that deciphering the underlying mechanisms of climate response to solar variability
relies on better representation of the atmosphere’s dynamical, chemical, and radiative processes in models,
part of which includes full spectral representation of solar variability. Progress toward this end will be achieved
through coordinated efforts between the SORCE instrument science team and users of these data.
Upcoming Meetings / Talks –
SORCE scientists plan to present papers or attend the
following 2006 meetings:
EUFAR (EUropean Fleet for Airborne Research) Workshop on Combining Satellite Missions and Aircraft Activities: Future Challenges for the EUFAR Fleet, Sept.
13-15, Paris, France
SORCE Science Meeting, Sept. 20-22,
San Juan Islands, WA
Coimbra Solar Physics Meeting, “The physics of
chromospheric plasmas,” Oct. 9-13,
Coimbra, Portugal
AGU Fall Meeting, Dec. 11-15, San Francisco, CA
To submit information to this newsletter, please contact:
vanessa.george@ lasp.colorado.edu.
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